1. Technical Field
The invention relates to database managers and more particularly to creation of databases on distributed data processing systems. Still more particularly, the invention relates to providing for user definition of cultural bias of databases upon creation, and modification of cultural bias after creation, notwithstanding use of different operating systems on the nodes of the distributed system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When a database is created using a database manager product such as the OS/2 Extended Services Database Manager of International Business Machines Corp., a country code is permanently assigned to the database to set a cultural bias. Cultural bias determines such things as how dates are expressed, time information is interpreted and formatted, and how character data is compared. Assignment of a country code is not an explicit user operation. Upon issuance of a CREATE DATABASE command from an application (i.e. a process executing in an OS/2 operating system environment), the country code of the application is assigned to the new database.
Several problems result from this arrangement. First and most obvious, the user of the computer from which the database is created has only indirect control over the country code assigned the database. It becomes difficult to port the database manager to other operating platforms because of the need to determine the application country code on each platform. Creation of a database from a client on a network cannot be permitted, partly because of problems associated with the need to determine the application country codes on each client node of the network.
Perhaps the most significant difficulty raised is that databases are limited to those country codes supported by the operating system of the client/server. It is common to construct a database client-server network where the server is provided by a workstation running the OS/2 operating system or a derivative of the UNIX operating system (e.g. AIX) and the clients run the MS-DOS/WINDOWS operating system. Normally it would be preferable to allow specification of the cultural bias from the client, as such a choice would eliminate data confusion and even corruption that can result from use of different cultural biases between client and server. However, the WINDOWS shell supports country codes that are not supported by the OS/2 operating system. A client operating the WINDOWS shell and configured for a country code not supported by the OS/2 operating system is exposed to the problems arising from mismatched cultural biases and the subsequent affect on processing. The OS/2 operating system and the DBM database manager are available from IBM corporation.